


my love was bought (and sold)

by impulserun



Series: age of miracles [5]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-09 22:21:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2000091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impulserun/pseuds/impulserun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Thenardier is a shit no matter what universe he is in, and the writer takes a pickaxe to Mme. Thenardier's character.</p><p>(Mme. Thenardier-centric.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	my love was bought (and sold)

“I was sold to the Red Room at a very young age,” Eponine tells him, lips quirking upwards in a sardonic mockery of a smile. “They wiped my memory, of course. I had no idea who I was. Most of the time, they told me my name was Talya. I was an only child. My parents died in a fire. I wanted to be a ballerina. Planted some false memories here and there. Things like that.” 

She stops, slouching in her seat. Montparnasse knows to keep quiet and wait for her to begin again.

At last, she continues.

“Afterwards, when the Red Room went bust – I suppose they wanted to cover their tracks. Tried to off me. But I fought back.” She shrugs. “I found the file they kept on me, later. That’s where I got my name.”

Eponine pauses for the longest time. “I had a sister, you know? Like me. In the Black Widow Programme. Her name was Azelma. I knew her as Yelena, or Yana.”

Montparnasse reaches over and takes her hand in his. He does not need her to continue her story for him to know how it ends.

Δ

“You sold our children.”

She no longer hears what her husband has to say, or is saying.

 _Our children_ , she thinks. _My daughters. My Eponine, my little Azelma. I will never see you again._

Just this morning, before she left to buy groceries, and run some other errands, she had kissed her drowsing daughters goodbye, told them to be good for Papa, run her callused fingers through their ash brown hair. She hadn’t expected that to be the last time she would ever see them.

She doesn’t know who the man in front of her is any more.

“You sold our children,” she repeats, and the world comes crashing around her. She no longer feels safe in the privacy of her own home. Not when her stomach is round with another child on the way.

The tears won’t come. But that’s okay. There’s plenty of time for crying later.

*

She leaves in the middle of the night, when her husband is sound asleep. She throws together a little bag of her most precious belongings – photos of her daughters, whatever she had left of her mama’s old jewellery, identification, a few changes of clothes – takes the car and leaves.

She can do this. She can leave this life behind and start anew. It’s nothing she’s never done before.

*

She moves to America with the last of her money and reverts to her maiden name of Bellamy. She wants to be Mrs. Thenardier no longer, nor does she desire to take up any other name than her own. And she cannot return to her hometown. Neither can she stay in England. There are too many painful memories for her there. All her old fantasies about love and marriage have long since been buried in an early grave. She’s not the young, stupid, naïve girl she was before.

She checks herself into a hospital, several months later.

“His father is out of the picture,” she tells the nurses, letting them draw their own assumptions.

Little Gavroche Thenardier enters the world a healthy, squalling baby boy, with a head of soft blond fuzz and eyes the colour of the ocean. Just like his father’s.

It is too much to bear. She leaves him on the porch of a church with a written card, a blanket and a basket. She cannot bring herself to look into those eyes. Not again.

*

She opens the door one morning to her neighbour Fang Ting, a harried Chinese woman, hair falling out of a perfect French braid and dark eye bags beneath her eyes.

“Oh my,” she gasps. “Are you alright?”

“I am so, _so_ sorry,” Fang Ting says in crisp English, “but could you watch over my daughter? There’s been an emergency at work and my usual babysitter is away – I’ll pay you, of course, I’m not asking you to do it for free – it’ll only be for three days at most, I promise –”

Not quite comprehending, she looks down; there is a tiny Chinese girl hugging her mother’s knees, staring up at her with ambivalent brown eyes.

“I mean, you don’t _have_ to,” Fang Ting frets, “I can find a day care service or I can call a friend from work – it’s just, we don’t have any family in America, and –”

She realises, then. Not once since she moved in has she seen Fang Ting’s husband.

“Don’t worry; it won’t be a problem at all,” she tells her neighbour, crouching to meet the little one’s eyes. “And who might this be?”

A relieved smile breaks on Fang Ting’s weary face like the light of the rising sun. “Say hello, Cosette. This is Madam Bellamy.”

“Hello Madam Bellamy,” Cosette recites politely. “My name is Cosette.” She goes on to add, “我的名字是芳欢悦,” and beams proudly, showing off pearly white teeth.

“Oh dear,” Fang Ting sighs, as if this has happened before. “Cosette dear, Madam Bellamy doesn’t speak Chinese.”

The little girl frowns and tries again. “Je m’appelle Cosette?”

Fang Ting exhales noisily and runs a hand through her hair, pulling more strands out of her braid. “I am so, so, sorry about this.”

“It’s quite alright, I assure you,” and, turning back to the girl, “Bonjour, mon ami. Mon nom est Blanche Bellamy. But you can call me Aunty Blanche, yes?”

*

She grows to love the small Chinese family who lives next door, she really does. It is so easy to let Cosette into her heart, to let this little girl with her disarming smile and bright laughter fill the spaces she thought could never be filled again. It is so easy to reach out to Fang Ting, to offer her a smile and a supportive shoulder. They never talk of their husbands.

If she still had her Azelma with her today, Cosette would have been the same age as her. Maybe they would have been playmates. Maybe Eponine would have been like a big sister to her. She can almost see it now; the three little girls, sitting on the living room floor, playing at house while she rocks their brother to sleep and chats with Fang Ting over a cup of tea.

If only. Things could have been so different.

*

It is a typical Tuesday when Fang Ting is called away to work yet again. But everything is different.

A man with a head of shocking white hair and an eye patch comes to the door. Asks to speak to her. Cosette is napping in the living room.

The eye patch man comes into her house and takes the last bit of sunshine out of her life. Fang Ting is dead. He is taking Cosette away to live with him, as per her mother’s last request.

Blanche Bellamy’s hand flies up to her mouth, her breath hitches in a sob.

As much as she wishes otherwise, the tears won’t stop coming.

*

She moves out of her flat. Moves across town. Takes up a job in the community library. Books were her first love, her husband her second, and her children her third.

At least if her books break her heart, she can always turn to another one to put it back together.

*

There is a girl dressed in black leather with long ash brown hair and grey eyes on the news. For a moment, she lets herself imagine that it is her Eponine – or maybe her Azelma – before she picks up the remote and turns off the television.

*

The doorbell rings on a Sunday afternoon.

Her bones crick painfully back into place as she shuffles to the door. Blanche Bellamy is not quite the beauty she used to be, in her younger days. Her hair is grey now, and it no longer falls to her back in the luscious waves that once attracted her village’s attention. Giving birth to three children has done nothing for her figure; she is no longer the slim, buxom blonde she used to be. Not that it matters any more.

“Hello,” says the young man on the other side of the door. “Are you Mrs. Joel Thenardier?”

Her face hardens. “I was once. I go by Blanche Bellamy now. If you’re here about my husband, I have nothing to say to you.”

She moves to close the door, but the man steps aside to reveal two others behind him. One is the leather-wearing brunette from television, the one that helped to save New York. The other is a young, blond man with eyes like the ocean.

For the first time in forever, Blanche Bellamy allows herself to hope.

“Eponine?” she whispers. “Gavroche?”

“ _Maman_ ,” Eponine sobs, and throws herself forward.

**Author's Note:**

> And then Eponine tells her about Cosette and she tells Cosette about her mum and they all have one big happy reunion whee.
> 
> 我的名字是芳欢悦 - My name is Fang Huan Yue. Huan Yue means 'happiness'.
> 
> Je m'appelle Cosette? - My name is Cosette? 
> 
> Bonjour mon ami, mon nom est Blanche Bellamy. - Hello my friend, my name is Blanche Bellamy.


End file.
